On Syria, now they tell us

New York Times White House correspondent Peter Baker looks back at Assad’s use of Sarin gas to murder civilians in Syria in the context of President Obama’s agreement with Putin and Assad to remove chemical weapons. In the newspaper Baker’s article runs on page A11 under the headline “Deal on Syria’s chemical weapons comes back to haunt Obama.” Online Baker’s article runs under the headline “For Obama, Syria chemical attack shows risk of ‘deals with dictators.'” Neither headline makes sense to me, although the article is useful in demonstrating the falsehoods retailed to the American people on behalf of Obama’s Middle East foreign policy.

Baker quotes former Obama administration Deputy Secretary of State Antony Blinken: “We always knew we had not gotten everything, that the Syrians had not been fully forthcoming in their declaration.” Thanks for the explanation. There will of course be much more of this to come in the future. For the moment, however, Michael Doran comments via Twitter.

Baker’s article doesn’t touch on the Iran deal, thought it is suggestive of the shameless explanations, rationalizations and apologetics to which we can look forward when the Iranian regime announces its development of nuclear weapons. A reporter or two will recall the billions we airlifted into Iran and the contemporaneous statement made by Obama: “Every path to a nuclear weapon has been cut off.” It requires no creativity or foresight whatsoever to anticipate what Wynken, Blinken and Nod will have to say when the time comes.